STILWELL, Okla. — The questions in Stilwell Friday were not abstract. They came from a workforce development officer who had just learned his agency nearly lost federal funding. They came from a resident asking about a hospital closure in their own county. They came from a room asking a candidate for governor to be specific.
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Cyndi Munson took each one in turn at the Stilwell Community Building, addressing education funding, hospital finances, water quality and the state’s relationship with tribal nations. Munson, the Oklahoma House minority leader from Oklahoma City, will face the winner of the Aug. 25 Republican runoff between Attorney General Gentner Drummond and former state Sen. Mike Mazzei in the November general election.
An attendee raised the closure of Stilwell Memorial Hospital last year. Munson answered by pointing to Stillwater Medical Center as a comparable case of the financial pressure facing rural hospitals statewide, citing projected losses tied to federal Medicaid cuts and the facility’s role providing obstetric, primary and specialty care. She named a second facility, an Integris hospital near Northwest Expressway in Oklahoma City, which she said has already reduced childcare services this year for the same reason.
An attendee told Munson that state Rep. David Hardin had voted for legislation tying a teacher pay increase to an expansion of the state’s private school voucher program. Munson said she supports repealing the state’s private school tax credit program and redirecting that funding toward public school budgets and teacher pay. She said a legislative interim study on the use of standardized testing, including the ACT, as a measure of student performance was approved this year, led by state Rep. Dick Lowe.
On Medicaid, Munson said she opposed a Republican-backed effort this year to move Medicaid expansion out of the Oklahoma Constitution and into state statute, a change that would give the Legislature more room to alter eligibility requirements. The measure did not advance. Munson said she would continue to oppose similar efforts as governor.
On water quality, Munson said loose state environmental regulations have drawn data center and industrial development to Oklahoma, pointing to a proposed aluminum smelter project and longstanding concerns about the poultry industry’s effect on state waterways.
On tribal relations, Munson said she is scheduled to visit the Choctaw Nation on Aug. 7 to observe its court system and discuss law enforcement cooperation between tribal and local agencies. She said she has a working relationship with Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. and served one term in the Legislature alongside his father, former state Sen. Chuck Hoskin Sr.
A Green Country Workforce Development representative told Munson that a U.S. Department of Labor decision earlier this year nearly dissolved the regional board that administers federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding locally. Munson said she had not been aware of the matter, said she would look into it, and thanked the attendee for raising it.